Raspberry Pi delayed over confusion about CE approval

The Raspberry Pi computer has been further delayed after confusion surrounding whether the educational credit card sized computer needed European CE certification before it could be shipped to customers.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation explained on their blog that the two distributors, currently holding the first batch of around 2,000 units were "not willing" to deliver them until the model had passed European compliance testing to ensure they don’t emit excessively high levels of electromagnetic noise.

They also explained that "given the volumes involved and the demographic mix of likely users, any development board exemption is not applicable to us; as a result, even the first uncased developer units of Raspberry Pi will require a CE mark prior to sale in the EU."

When asked about whether this would affect orders for those outside of the European Union, Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation replied, "North America is out of the question (FCC requirements largely mirror CE ones), but there are areas of the world which are less strict."

This is the second delay customers of the first production run have had to endure. A mistake at the manufacturing plant at the beginning of the month caused delays after the wrong type of ethernet port was soldered to the computer's board. The board uses network jacks with magnetic components and the factory accidently substituted them with non-magnetic versions. It was a simple enough fix, however.

Interest on the Raspberry Pi has been enormous. The first production run sold out in minutes and one of distributors recently declared that demand was 20 times greater than their supply. At one point they were selling at 700 per second while preorders were being taken.

The charity is working as fast as humanly possible alongside both of their distributors to ensure that the CE approval is granted as soon as practically possible.

There is some good news though. The first batch is already at the distributors' warehouses since Monday, so once the CE approval is granted it shouldn't be long before they're delivered to customers.